Drones in Geoscience Research: The Sky Is the Only Limit
Here are six ways that drones are making their way into geosciences research and industry through innovative applications.
By Christa Kelleher, Christopher A. Scholz, Laura Condon, and Marlowe Reardon 22 February 2018
In the digital age, our capabilities for monitoring Earth processes are dramatically increasing, offering new opportunities to observe Earth’s dynamic behavior in fields ranging from hydrology to volcanology to atmospheric sciences. The latest revolution for imaging and sampling Earth’s surface involves unmanned aircraft systems, also known as unmanned aerial vehicles, remotely piloted aircraft, or, colloquially, drones.
Drones come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and platforms. These include several different designs (single rotors, multirotors, hybrids, and fixed-wing platforms) that can be used to carry many different types of payloads, including sensors, cameras, and sampling equipment. More important, drones are now applied toward a range of objectives for assessing dynamic processes in two, three, and four dimensions, revolutionizing our ability to rapidly collect high-quality observations across Earth’s surface.
https://eos.org/features/drones-in-geoscience-research-the-sky-is-the-only-limit
